How To: Split Test Your Facebook Lead Ads

One of the key components of Facebook Lead Ad optimization is split testing. Also known as an A/B test, split testing entails splitting an audience into two random segments and showing them creative that differs in one key way. This can be your Facebook Lead Ad copy, imagery, offer, CTA or any other element of your ad. The key is to test one item at a time, keeping all the rest the same, in order to find the variable that works best.

As you can see, manual split testing can quickly become quite cumbersome. You will likely want to test many different aspects of creative, and probably more than just two variations of each. Thankfully, Facebook has worked to automate this process for all of its advertising products, including Facebook Lead Ads. Through this new option, advertisers can now simply and accurately test different components of an ad across devices and browsers and get easy-to-read, actionable results.

Here’s how it works: you create your Facebook Lead Ad Campaign like usual and select “Create Split Test” during campaign creation. This tells Facebook to test your ad sets against each other, instead of showing the ads to the same people. There will be no creative overlap; Facebook automatically divides up your audience so each group only sees one version of your Facebook Lead Ad. You create one audience, and Facebook does the rest!

Run this way, you total Facebook Lead Ad reach will be divided across your ad sets. And since Facebook user data is tied to real people, there is no risk of duplication and no wasted effort creating multiple audiences that mirror each other.

Image credit: Facebook

Once Facebook has enough data to make a determination of performance, that ad will receive preference in delivery in order to maximize budget. Facebook will also alert you of findings so that you can apply these learnings to all Facebook Lead Ad Campaigns and begin split testing other variables. In this way you are very quickly and easily able to create the highest possible performing Facebook Lead Ads for lower cost per lead. How much lower? Facebook cites a median 14% improvement in CPA. So what are you waiting for? Start split testing today!